1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a game apparatus for advancing a game in accordance with a game program, a game control method, a recording medium and a computer program therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, role playing games (RPG) are known as one of the categories of video games. In an RPG, a character manipulated by a player, player's character, may grow up meeting with and separating from fellow characters, fighting with an enemy character, and so on.
Further, an RPG may allow the player to collect different kinds of information within a virtual world provided by the game through the player's character and execute different kinds of events in accordance with the collected information. Thus, the player's character in an RPG may solve a mystery and/or a secret in the virtual world, through which the player's character can also grow. In general, an RPG refers to a game having elements that allow a player's character to grow and, further, to do so as part of a story.
Typically, in an RPG, as the game advances, the game stage changes. A game field defined in the virtual world also changes in accordance with a manipulation of the player's character. A final target of the player's character, determined as the game advances in a given game stage, also may change one after the other. In an RPG, the player may additionally manipulate the player's character in order to undergo different kinds of experiences before the final target.
Typical to an RPG is also a display screen on a display apparatus that the player can actually view within a view of the player's character. This display, however, is only a part of a given game field. Thus, in order to check where a final target exists within the game field, some games include a function to display a so-called radar screen for checking in a wider game field.
Displaying the radar screen so as to display a whole area of the game field, for example, allows the display of a final target within the radar screen for checking. However, in order to achieve this, the reduction rate of the screen must be reduced. Thus, a condition around the player's character can be hard to recognize.
Therefore, the size of an area displayed on a radar screen within a given game field must be reduced so as to allow both manipulation on the player's character and recognition of the condition around the player's character at the same time.
Conventionally, a game is advanced by checking a condition around player's character on a radar screen, and in order to check a final target, a displayed area is expanded toward the radar screen. After checking the target, the displayed area of the radar screen is changed to the size that the surrounding of the player's character can be recognized for performing game operations.
Thus, manipulations are complicated, and player's character may move toward the direction completely different from a final target when checking of the target is neglected, which may disturb the progress of the game.